


Don't Wait Up

by TheSaddleman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Death of a loved one, F/M, Friendship, Grief, Love Confessions, Promises, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 11:59:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8012968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the Doctor’s former companions arrives at Coal Hill School to deliver a devastating message to Clara Oswald, one that threatens to change her life forever. The message also comes with a gift - a gift that comes with a decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Wait Up

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of the darker stories I've written. But stick with it as it goes in interesting directions. It is set in Series 9 sometime after the events of "The Zygon Inversion" but of course before "Face the Raven".

“Don’t wait up.”

Those three words threatened to tear apart Clara Oswald’s life forever.

She knew something was wrong when she saw a teenaged boy with dark hair dressed in a yellowish uniform-style outfit with a gold star on the left breast waiting for her in the front office at Coal Hill School. 

She’d been teaching yet another lesson about Jane Austen when Mr. Armitage came to the door of her classroom. “There’s a young man at the front who says he needs to speak with you urgently,” he said.

Clara, slightly annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of relating yet another anecdote about the author, replied, “Can he wait? We only have another ten minutes.”

Armitage frowned. “That’s what I said to him too, but he said for me to pass along a message: ‘Don’t wait up.’”

Clara stood in silence for a moment, then said to him, “Can you take over?”

“Of course. But I do wish to speak to you about these continued distractions. You still haven’t given us a proper explanation as to why you left school during that incident with the planes a few months back.”

Clara ignored the veiled threat to her job and took long strides towards the front office.

The boy, who had been sitting on a bench, stood up politely as Clara entered the room. She thought she recognized the lad, who barely looked older than some of her students. His dark features and retro haircut gave him an early eighties vibe. She knew he was a fellow time traveller; he definitely didn’t look like a Londoner of the late 2010s. 

“Is there somewhere we can talk in private, Miss Oswald?” the boy said.

Clara motioned him towards an unoccupied staff break room and closed the door behind her.

“My name is Adric,” he said.

“The Doctor? How is he, is he okay?” Clara asked quickly. She hadn’t seen the Doctor in two months. While long absences were not uncommon with the Time Lord, this was longer than usual. And worse yet, he wasn’t answering his phone. She missed him. And now, “Don’t wait up”—it was a message they’d arranged, a bit of code. He’d insisted. She’d resisted. They wouldn’t need it. Ever, she had said.

“Ma’am…”

“Please, call me Clara.”

“Clara, this is kind of complicated to explain, but I’m not with your Doctor. I’m with another.”

Finally, Clara realized where she’d seen the boy before. His photo was one of many of the Doctor’s former “associates” that were pinned up in UNIT’s Black Archive. “Which one?” she asked.

“He told me once that he was the … fifth?”

“Wow, early days for you, then,” Clara said, instantly regretting it. “Forget I said that. Why are you here?”

“Maybe the Doctor should explain.” With that, Adric gently placed a small black disc on the table and tapped it twice. A three-dimensional image of a sandy-haired man in a light-coloured coat with a piece of celery bizarrely attached to the left lapel appeared. He looked a little flustered.

“When do I start talking … oh, it’s on already, is it? Could never get the hang of … yes, right, well, hello. Hello there. If my friend Adric has been successful in finding you, I assume I am speaking to someone who’ll be travelling with me at some point in the future.

“The device Adric has just shown you, now playing my image, contains a message from, well, whichever one of me you’re travelling with. The identity of the recipient—that’s you, of course—was encoded into the disc and could only be accessed by someone other than myself, to preserve the timeline. So I can’t know who you are or what you look like or any of that, for reasons I trust do not need to be explained to you. In order to deliver this message, my companion, Adric, volunteered to take a timed-release dose of an amnesia drug called retcon so he will soon forget meeting you and any details, such as your name, that could infect the timeline.”

Clara found herself talking back to the image: “Get to the point, please.” It didn’t matter the incarnation, the Doctors had a few things in common, such as the tendency to ramble.

The Doctor continued. “This is all quite weird, I know. Apparently, at some point my future self will come up with a plan to notify you in the event that we are not travelling together for whatever reason—not sure why that would be; my companions usually live here inside the TARDIS, but never mind. The message as I understand from the instructions is to be delivered if I am, well, permanently indisposed, I guess you could say.”

Clara felt her heart sinking through her diaphragm. The novelty of seeing an earlier version of the Doctor immediately evaporated into greater dread. 

“The TARDIS exists through all of time and space and, well, evidently something has occurred or will occur, rather, that caused the protocol to be activated and she transmitted the message to herself, today. I’m not sure why me and not one of the other mes … but I’m rambling again, aren’t I?”

Clara was barely hearing any of it. 

“My friend—and I think I am safe in using that term, even if I do not know yet who you are—I know this is difficult. Imagine how I must feel; for all I know, the message might have been sent by me next week, or perhaps on my deathbed at the end of my thirteenth life…” Clara couldn’t help but smirk at that; if he only knew. “But we all have to face the end for those we have come to know and cherish. I’ve taken a similar delayed dose of retcon, and so I would advise Adric to leave you now and return to the TARDIS immediately. 

“My friend, for what it’s worth, I hope we had the best of times and that the times ahead for you are just as bright. My understanding is this disc contains a further message from, well, your Doctor. When you’re ready to view it, please tap the disc three times. Farewell.”

With that the young-looking Doctor’s face faded.

“I guess that’s it then,” Adric said. “I’m glad to have met you, Clara, although I wish the circumstances were better. It’s a shame I won’t remember it. Maybe we’ll meet again, eh?”

“Thank you, Adric,” Clara said. Of course, she knew who Adric was now. His fate still haunted the Doctor all these centuries later. Before Adric left, she wrapped him into a tight hug that the awkward boy didn’t quite know how to handle. “Take care of him. He has a lot of important things to do.”

With a lopsided smile, Adric left the room.

Clara turned her attention back to the disc. The words she shouted at the Doctor back at the Drum replayed themselves in her mind. “Die with whomever comes after, you do not leave me!” He’d broken that promise.

Or maybe not. The other Doctor had not said his future self was actually dead. Maybe he got himself elected president for life somewhere, or got married to some three-headed monster from the planet Zetox and was about to break it off with Clara—break _what_ off? she mused. He might not be dead. He might not.

Clara took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tapped the disc three times.

As before, a face appeared, but this time adorned with piercing eyes and fierce eyebrows; this time it was the Doctor she knew and, yes, loved. He looked sombre, almost stiff. He was wearing the dark outfit with the red lining that he rarely wore these days. His hair was long and curled, so this was definitely recorded after the dream crabs. 

“Clara, if you’re watching this then that means Protocol 2 has been activated by the TARDIS and my past self has done what I requested him to do. And it means … I’m sorry, Clara, I respect you too much to beat about the brambles. It means I’m, well, dead.”

Clara took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes again. So much for the hope that semantics would be on her side. The Doctor seemed to have anticipated that Clara would need a moment for that to sink in, so he paused for a few moments before continuing.

“This is a prerecorded message, so I cannot tell you how I died. Or where. Maybe it’s just as well you don’t know. I’d hate for you to try and come after me or, worse, try to change history.” Now how the hell do you expect me to do that? Clara asked herself. “Of course, whatever happened must have been catastrophic enough that I could not regenerate—or maybe I tried and I only ever just had this one bonus life. I never properly thanked you for that. We never discussed it, but there was only one way I could have gotten a regeneration on Trenzalore … even if it was just for this one life, I’m richer for the experience. Richer for knowing you.”

For a few moments, the Doctor paused, and incredibly he seemed to lock eyes with Clara, even though there was no way he could have known where she would be standing as she viewed the recording. She saw his eyes soften. Even though this was recorded well before whatever happened happened, it couldn’t have been easy for him to make this message. The resolution was high enough on the recording that she could see his eyes tear up slightly.

“I have travelled with many companions over the millennia. And each one was special to me. But I owe you more than I can possibly express in words. You, my impossible girl, you saved me countless times in my time stream. You inspired me to find another way to end the Time War. You made me a better person. You once said I’d made myself essential to you. Clara, you have no idea how essential you are to me. To the point where … I’m sorry for sounding so selfish, but part of me is actually glad that I’ve gone first because I don’t know what I might do if I ever lost you.”

“Don’t say that, you bastard,” Clara muttered. 

“You know I’m not the type to go all maudlin. Some people might at this juncture say I love you, but that’s not my style. I’ve never really said that to anyone. And if I were to say I love you, it really wouldn’t cover how much I appreciate you, I trust you, and I honour you.”

Clara couldn’t help but smile. Did he even realize that he’d said the very thing he’d been trying to avoid? She wished she’d had the chance, too. Yes, there was that moment on the _Orient Express_ when she actually said it to both him and Danny at the same time—which led to no end of headaches—but then she’d made the promise to Danny before losing him forever that those words belonged to him, no one else. No matter what she felt for the Doctor, she had lied to Danny so many times, she owed him to never say “I love you” to anyone ever again. 

The Doctor seemed momentarily unsure of himself, as if he was about to take a big risk (or maybe it did register in his brain what he’d just said). He took a small device out of his pocket. 

“Before I go, I have left you a gift. This disc also functions as something called a Stattenheim remote control. I gave up waiting for the High Council to give me one, so I made one of my own. It can be used to summon my TARDIS from anywhere in time and space, assuming she hasn’t been destroyed—but then, if she’s been destroyed you wouldn’t be seeing this message. Tap this disc four times to activate it—it’s only good for one shot so make sure you’re somewhere private. 

“Clara, the TARDIS I bequeath you. I am entrusting you not with her, but with the freedom to go anywhere, do anything—except rescue me. You must promise not to attempt a rescue, or change time to undo my death. And I need you to make me another promise. Don’t let this change you. Never, ever lose track of being Clara Oswald.”

“Don’t say goodbye,” Clara said quietly. “Please, don’t…”

“I won’t,” the Doctor said—how did he hear her? Or did he anticipate her response? They knew each other so well. “Just … be Clara. Be an impossible girl.”

In the background of the recording, a familiar voice could be heard. “Doctor? I finally got the smell of Viking campfire smoke out of my hair. Did you see where I left my hair clip?” 

In the present, Clara now knew exactly when the recording was made. He must have come up with this plan, created Protocol 2, recorded the message, all in the time it took her to clean up after their two-day trek back to the TARDIS after the incident with Ashildr and the Mire in the Viking village. The time he’d said how he couldn’t handle it if he ever lost Clara. She’d been too grief-stricken over the death of Ashildr and too concerned about her friend’s state of mind for what he’d said to actually register at the time. By the time it had, she'd felt too awkward to bring it up.

“I’ll help you find it, Clara. Just a moment.” The Doctor took a quick glance at the camera once more and gave a sad smile. The image froze at this point for a few seconds before fading.

“My Doctor,” Clara said, wiping tears from her face.

Gingerly, she picked up the disc and held it like a precious jewel as she went back to her classroom. She told Mr. Armitage that a loved one had died (not a lie) and she requested the rest of the day off. 

Clara rode her motorcycle home. There really was no better place, she thought, to summon the TARDIS since that was where so many of her adventures with the Doctor had begun. She’d long since left a space in her living room for the ship to park herself. 

Right now, that space had never felt so empty.

Clara put the disc down on an end table. She mused that it somewhat resembled the Doctor’s confession dial that had bizarrely triggered the meeting between Missy and herself in Spain that led to a reunion in Medieval England. She still resented that the Doctor sent Missy it and not her. She didn’t care that Missy was one of his own people and, supposedly, one of his oldest friends, if not one. Dammit, she should have been the one.

Clara mentally kicked herself. What the hell are you doing, Clara? You’re being petty and, anyway, screw the confession dial. Knowing the Doctor it was probably full of lies. He’s given you … everything else.

Clara wasn’t ready to tap the disc yet. She went into her kitchen and pulled out a bottle of Chablis. It took half a bottle to get a bit of a buzz on. There were probably a number of reasons why she shouldn’t just get blitzed at that moment. Her best friend—regardless of her often-conflicting feelings about the man, this was at least a baseline that every aspect of her psyche could agree upon—was gone. No more Wednesday nights walking under the stars on some far-off planet. No more things blowing up as she and the Doctor ran, hands clasped tightly. No more moments where the two shared entire conversations just by looking at each other.

I didn’t want those days to end. Not yet. Not ever, she thought.

“I am entrusting you with not only the TARDIS, but the freedom to go anywhere, do anything—except rescue me,” he had said. He’d made her promise.

No, she thought, he bloody well did not have the right to make me promise that.

Steeling herself, she put down her glass, approached the end table and, without hesitation, tapped the disc four times.

The familiar wheezing and groaning sound filled the room and the blue box faded into existence. If Clara didn’t know better, she could have sworn that it was a darker shade of blue than usual, almost as if the TARDIS had mixed black in with the paint.

The door automatically opened as the TARDIS welcomed her new owner. Clara realized how, not long ago, the TARDIS hated her. She played tricks on Clara, even refused to let her in at times. As time went on, their relationship mellowed and she even began allowing Clara to open and close her doors by snapping her fingers, a privilege she had only recently bestowed upon the Doctor.

Clara quietly entered the TARDIS and walked up to the console. The Doctor had been training her in basic TARDIS operations for years now. Around the time of the Zygon insurgence, he’d even taken the training wheels of the bike and allowed Clara to begin choosing where and when, setting the coordinates and piloting the TARDIS solo, albeit always under his watchful eye. Okay, so she couldn’t pilot her yet with the same sort of pinpoint accuracy he could, but she could still get from Point A to Point B.

Point A right now was her flat. A place that hadn’t truly felt like home for a long time.

Point B… Point B…

Clara spoke aloud. “The Doctor told me I shouldn’t come after him. That I shouldn’t change history to rescue him. What he forgets is … I don’t always listen.”

Clara this time spoke directly to the TARDIS: “I know you can hear me. You agreed once to help me enter a bubble universe to help save him. And now I’m asking you again. I know you love him. I love him. The two of us just could never say it.”

“I told him.” Suddenly, a hologram of the Doctor appeared standing next to her, a sad smile on his/her/its face. Clara was startled for a moment, but this wasn’t the first time she’d communicated with the ship this way.

“Well, I guess so did I, once. But the point is the universe needs the Doctor, but nowhere near as much as the two of us need him. I know you must know where he is. There’s probably some Law of Time saying you shouldn’t do this, but please … help me save him. I want the Doctor back. And I know so do you. Did you remember what the Doctor yelled at Trenzalore? ‘Nobody tells me the rules?’ Who has the right to tell the two of us the rules?”

“Is that what you really want?” the avatar said. “My Thief gave me to you. You can go anywhere you wish. Do anything you want.”

“Yes. And I am making the choice. But I can’t do this without you. He could be anywhere in time and space. Only you know.”

Even though the TARDIS was limited in her ability to express emotion, ever since her consciousness briefly inhabited a human named Idris—whose last words to the Doctor were, indeed, “I love you,” her ability to communicate feelings had been improving, even though she rarely was able to express herself directly to the Doctor. Clara, however, saw now how the Doctor/TARDIS avatar actually took on an expression that was undisguised pride.

“My Thief chose well when he found you,” the TARDIS interface said. 

“Thank you,” Clara replied fondly. She found herself reaching out to tap the hologram on the shoulder, but realized that was a lost cause, though the avatar did raise a brief smile. “Now, shall we raise some hell and get our Time Lord back?”

“The coordinates are entered,” the interface said. “You will need to be very careful. You cannot save the Doctor until after he’s sent the message to me, otherwise it will create a paradox. There will be very limited time.”

“But we still have to try.”

“Yes, we do,” the TARDIS said.

Clara pulled the dematerialization lever and the ship vanished into the Time Vortex.

“Then let’s bring him home.”

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: A few people have asked if this is part 1. Technically, no. I wanted to leave it open with an open-ending similar to what we saw at the end of Hell Bent. That doesn't mean I won't return to this, but this was not intended to be a multi-chapter story at the moment. Think of it as a season-ender cliffhanger if you like!
> 
> This story began as an AU; an alternate take of Series 9 to suggest a scenario where Clara lost the Doctor and had to live with the aftermath. I would like to think that if he died he'd entrust the TARDIS to Clara. As I wrote the story I realized that, given how similar the two were, if Clara were given the TARDIS, the first thing she'd do is try and rescue the Doctor. Someday I might write a followup describing how she and the TARDIS do that. As it stands, this story can now sit within the continuity of Series 9, I think, if you squint. There are some elements that might be at odds with what we saw at the end of Face the Raven, but I don't think so. Maybe this is why Clara already knew what he was going to say to her on Trap Street.
> 
> As usual, I touch on bits and pieces from various stories. Idris, of course, expressed the TARDIS' feelings for the Eleventh Doctor in "The Doctor's Wife" and Clara and the TARDIS previously conversed in "Hide". The fact the TARDIS interface, who took Clara's form in the earlier episode because she felt Clara held her own self in highest esteem, now takes the form of the Twelfth Doctor. Do the math there.
> 
> The Stattenheim remote control dates back to the 1985 episode "The Two Doctors."
> 
> For the second time, some autocorrect system at AO3 changed the spelling of the name Zygon to Zigong. I've gone back and fixed this but not before 80+ people read the story. Sorry, guys!


End file.
